Digital media and Politics

This article is written as part of one of the courses of the BA Online Culture: Art, Media and Society or the MA Online Culture at Tilburg University. Click on the link for more info on the courses and the programme.

In this international Bachelor’s program Online Culture: Art, Media and Society (Culture Studies) the focus is on digital culture and (new) media. From disciplines such as cultural studies and media studies you study how digitalization and globalization influence our way of living. You discuss new ways of communication, art expressions as well as (social) media expressions like memes and trolls. You research how such ways of communication and expressions are established and how they manifest in, and have influence on a society that increasingly takes place online. Additionally, you actively contribute to digital culture by writing papers and opinion pieces for our own online platform Diggit Magazine.

Michelle Obama as a representative of the When We All Vote Squad

How Michelle Obama uses algorithmic knowledge

Paper

Ilse van Knegsel

28/04/2021

17 minutes to read

Michelle Obama is no longer America's First Lady, but through her social media presence, always being on-message, and algorithmic knowledge, she maintains her political impact.

A picture of Diederik Gommers from his Instagram

Diederik Gommers the ICfluencer

Paper

Emma Wieringa

09/04/2021

16 minutes to read

Doctor Diederik Gommers has become increasingly important in Dutch media and politics. He has embraced the hybrid media system to encourage his young followers to follow COVID-19 measures, all while keeping his posts personal and relatable.

How the VVD party’s ‘warm right’ convinces ‘the people’

Article

Lisa van Turnhout

15/02/2021

14 minutes to read

The Dutch People's Party of Freedom and Democracy (VVD) remains 'on message' by succesfully normalizing their neoliberal ideology in the hybrid media system, which causes them to win the elections.

The Proud Boys in the hybrid media system

Article

Marieke Weeda

01/02/2021

15 minutes to read

This paper analyzes how the Proud Boys use the hybrid media system to spread their ideology, make use of metapolitics, and organise offline action.

How BreadTube challenges right-wing discourse

Article

Marit van Dijck

25/01/2021

15 minutes to read

BreadTube, a loose association of leftist content creators, successfully appropriates right-wing and mainstream techniques to break into their information flows online. But their usage of neoliberal affordances might threaten their future.

QAnon members along with Trump supporters

QAnon: The political capital of a conspiracy theory

Article

Lora Ditchev

15/01/2021

17 minutes to read

This article examines how QAnon became an umbrella for a variety of far-right conspiracy theories, and in unifying these ideas produced real political turmoil.

#MilkTeaAlliance: Social Media and big organizing in Hong Kong

Article

My Pham

15/01/2021

12 minutes to read

The Hong Kong protestors of the pro-democracy movement are expected to continue marching in 2021. Despite the violent clashes with police, their robust actions have caught the whole world's attention.

Kaitlin Bennett Graduating at Kent State University

Kaitlin Bennett: The New Right Metapolitical Influencer

Article

Caya Van Der Plas

13/01/2021

16 minutes to read

This article analyzes how Kaitlin Bennett, the self-proclaimed 'most hated conservative woman on the internet', has made a succesful career as a metapolitical influencer using her knowledge about the affordances of digital media.